Terrestrial communication systems continue to provide higher and higher speed multimedia (e.g., voice, data, video, images, etc.) services to end-users. Such services (e.g., Third Generation (3G) and Fourth Generation Long Term Evolution (4G LTE) systems and services) can also accommodate differentiated quality of service (QoS) across various applications. To facilitate this, terrestrial architectures are moving towards an end-to-end all-Internet Protocol (IP) architecture that unifies all services, including voice, over the IP bearer. In parallel, mobile satellite systems are being designed to complement and/or coexist with terrestrial coverage depending on spectrum sharing rules and operator choice. With the advances in processing power of portable computers, mobile phones and other highly portable devices, the average user has grown accustomed to sophisticated applications (e.g., streaming video, radio broadcasts, video games, etc.), which place tremendous strain on network resources. Further, such users have grown to expect ubiquitous global coverage. The Web as well as other Internet services rely on protocols and networking architectures that offer great flexibility and robustness; however, such infrastructure may be inefficient in transporting Web traffic, which can result in large user response time, particularly if the traffic has to traverse an intermediary network with a relatively large latency (e.g., a satellite network). Such high mobility, enhanced processing power of devices, and growth of low-latency applications, however, puts an immense strain on current terrestrial and satellite communications systems.
What is needed, therefore, are approaches for multi-satellite mobile satellite communications systems that efficiently provide high speed and high quality packet data services, and facilitate high terrestrial density.